Startup Microdose

Peter is a serially successful entrepreneur with a number of exits under his belt. His most notable was to Microsoft in 2006. That business then went on to become the most successful post-acquisition product in Microsoft history, earning Peter a congratulatory email from Bill Gates. He was also Head of LivingSocial in the UK when it and Groupon were the fastest-growing companies in the world. His latest project is Wagestream where his mission is to make payroll streamable and so put an end to payday poverty cycles while boosting employee motivation and retention. Peter is a Guinness World Record holder and a lively and entertaining character.

David’s 20-year career contains some remarkable highs: overseeing Lastminute.com’s $1.2bn exit to Travelocity, merging mydeco.com with Made.com, founding Tribesports and raising £2m from Adidas, acting as an NED for Simba Sleep and now as part of the founding team, alongside Brent Hoberman and Henry Lane Fox, of award-winning accelerator and incubator Founders’ Factory, (where we are fortunate enough to record these podcasts). But this glittering CV which David describes as ‘a drunkard’s stumble rather than a best laid plan’ is only part of the story. Despite the security of a wonderful career and loving family, David has been hospitalised by acute mental illness on three occasions. A story which he bravely shares at the end of the episode. This is by far our longest podcast - a testament to the breadth of David’s experience. His story and life learnings are entertaining and thrilling, while his strong views on the early-stage startup eco-system and fundraising will be of specific interest to entrepreneurs, investors and corporates.

Barney studied at Oxford and Harvard Universities before working as a doctor for the NHS. His experiences juggling multiple pagers and sending faxes (yes, faxes!) on graveyard hospital shifts led him to start Forward Health with fellow doctor, Lydia Yarlott, and serial entrepreneur Philip Mundy. Their product is already saving healthcare professionals time and improving patient outcomes by providing a secure, efficient system for communication and collaboration. Featured in every big publication you care to name and with $5.2m in total funding since launch in 2016, their ultimate goal is to connect healthcare around the world.

This conversation is with Thea Alexander and Pip Murray. Thea is the founder of Young Foodies – a community platform supporting food & beverage startups as they try to get off the ground and achieve scale. They have helped a number of brands become market leaders in their niche including: WheyHey, Mallow+Marsh, Plenish and Pip&Nut. Pip is the founder of all-natural nut butter phenomenon Pip&Nut. Now stocked in most major retailers, Pip&Nut is the foremost UK nut butter brand. In combination, they give us a detailed expose on many of the key obstacles facing challenger food and drink companies in today’s and tomorrow’s markets.

Simon is the founder of Depop – a peer-to-peer social shopping app for creatives which boasts over 10 million members and $43m in funding to date. Simon started out in design and publishing. He created innovative sunglass brand RETROSUPERFUTURE, an experience which included an interesting collaboration with Kanye West. He also spent 10 years running PIG, one of the most influential independent magazines in Italy; and credits his experience there as one of the driving forces behind his idea for Depop. Simon is a product genius and draws upon the work of not only business people but also architects, artists and philosophers as he strives for mastery with the Depop product.

Wil disappointed his mother when he abandoned a career in corporate law to start ChannelFlip Media. Apparently he had a 'good feeling' after waking up one day with a business plan scrawled on a napkin. Six years later, on Christmas Eve, he sold the business to TV production giant News Corp. His mother was very pleased. He then became Head of Digital at Condé Naste. Managing a team of over 100, he was responsible for creating a digital presence for their many prestigious publications including Vogue, GQ and Wired. He is now the founder of Entale who are revolutionising the production, discovery and listening experience of podcasts and other audio content. With a host of amusing stories from his glamorous career and some incisive insights and predictions regarding the future of content and entertainment, Wil made for a great guest.

A serial entrepreneur, investor, philanthropist, diplomat, and author; Bill founded not one but two unicorn companies in the 80s and 90s. His ambitions are now always driven by the purpose of creating a 'world that works for all life'. His work includes: - CoderDojo, a volunteer-driven community which teaches coding to kids in 107 countries -WeForest, which aims to combat climate change and support communities through forest restoration and has already planted 20 million trees. He is also a General Partner at SOS Ventures and founded the world's first biotech accelerator, RebelBio. He lives on a small farm in Cork, Ireland where he lives as sustainably as possible and has not set foot on a plane for 10 years. He is a charismatic speaker and regularly hosts masterclasses in persuasion. It's hardly surprising then that we found this conversation inspiring.

Giles is the CMO of What3Words. What3Words is one of the truly visionary companies on the current UK tech scene. They have addressed the world by dividing it into 57 trillion 3x3 squares, each with a three-word label. Already used by Mercedes, the United Nations and the Mongolian postal service to name a few, Giles talks us through the astonishing applications and efficiencies created by a flawless address system. Giles is a master storyteller and thrilled us with tales of the creative ways he is bringing a new address system to the world including a treasure hunt in collaboration with Tomb Raider.

Ed is the founder of Flock – a UK government & Silicon valley-backed insurtech platform disrupting the insurance industry with its real-time risk assessment and pay-as-you-fly model. Flock’s first product caters to the $100bn drone market. We learn how Ed’s academic background in engineering and then AI and government policy set him on this path (and allowed him to meet Elon Musk along the way). We also talk about the current and future applications of drones; and what they might mean for the future of our cities and our world.

Sergey is the founder of Atlas Biomed. Atlas is a personalised healthcare company empowering individuals to take control of their health through actionable recommendations based on gene and microbiome tests. We discuss the exciting potential of this space; Sergey's experience at Silicon Valley think tank, Singularity University; and the weird and wonderful symbiosis between us and our gut bacteria including the 'gut-brain axis' and its link to weight loss and depression.

Julian is the entrepreneur and marketing wizard behind Huel. Huel is a 'nutritionally complete' food product which aims to change how we produce and consume food. The 'hockey stick' growth of the business since launch in 2015 attests to its wild popularity with 20 million+ meals sold already. The company is on course for revenues of £58 million this year and anticipate a $1bn valuation in the next few years. We learn how he used SEO smarts to generate £2m revenues per year for his voucher codes business which he then exited before starting Huel. We dig into the hows and whys of the Huel mission and discuss the landscape of the future of food.

Emma is the founder of notorious adult party brand Killing Kittens which focuses on empowering female sexuality. Emma is widely hailed as the UK’s foremost female ‘sex entrepreneur’. We learn how she built the Killing Kittens empire which now holds events for its 100,000+ members all over the world as well as sex seminars and workshops on top of a thriving online dating community. We also discuss her latest product ‘SafeDate’, an app plugin aimed at making dating safer. Emma delighted us with salacious tales and impressed us with her knowledge and unshakeable conviction in the mission that has brought her so much success.

Maya Pindeus is the CEO & Co-Founder of Humanising Autonomy who are using deep machine learning to become the standard for communication between autonomous systems and people. Their first product, Blink, is computer vision for autonomous vehicles which can understand even culturally-specific human gestures. We discuss architecture, city design, deep learning and the unknown reality of a symbiotic future with autonomous machines. We ask how deeply can communication between man and machine go? And what will that mean for the future of our world?

Devika is the co-founder of care platform Vida. Motivated by her 12-year experience looking after her grandmother who received care from over 150 different carers, Devika is on a mission to harness technology to deliver personalised in-home care to the elderly and disabled. A former Googler, breast cancer research scientist and health policy advisor, she has been featured in Forbes’ 30 under 30 and in the Top 10 women changing the world by Glamour Magazine. She is also part of the Mayor of London’s ‘Female Founders Mission’ and is helping pioneer the future for women in tech. The need for a carer is something we all inevitably experience. This is the touching and inspiring story of one woman’s mission to make the care industry more human through technology.

Andy met Pete while looking for a co-founder for his burger delivery idea which became Chosen Bun. They were ahead of the curve given the subsequent rise of Deliveroo and made a quick exit after successfully growing the company, even sending a burger into space. Their latest project NOT(MEAT) is bringing delicious plant-based meat alternatives to the mass market. We try their NOT(Chicken) strips live on the episode and are astonished by the likeness in texture as well as flavour. They make for a highly entertaining duo and offer some great insights into the FMCG industry, the unsustainability of livestock farming and the future of food consumption. Whether you’re a vegan, budding flexitarian or simply interested in the FMCG space, it’s worth a listen…